Blooze Own: An F355 Six Speed N* Build Thread (Page 16/126)
17Car JUL 13, 05:48 PM
This thread is due for the Construction Zone!
I know you don't like the stock beauty cover, but I believe that the 93-94 engines came with a magnesium one that can be polished. There was a member on here who had one, looked realy good.
I have yet to find one though.
cptsnoopy JUL 13, 11:56 PM

quote
Originally posted by 17Car:

This thread is due for the Construction Zone!



I second the motion!

Charlie
IXSLR8 JUL 14, 01:06 AM
LOL! Yes. I didn't replace my intake either. Just used it after I couldn't get it all cleaned up as stated. The pools of oil is a natural N* attribute. I've had it off after it was cleaned and spotted the oil in there again...even with the heads all redone. If you delete your EGR system, its not supposed to carbon up any further. I deleted mine.

The fuel pressure regulator is a plug and play type set-up. You just take the clip out of the rail housing and pull the regulator. you can clean it up carefully as Will mentioned. Look for "O" rings and small fuel screen. The nice thing about the regulator is that its adjustable. You can counterclockwise and clockwise the screw and get more fuel pressure. Sort of an alternative for larger injectors for the mild cams. I'm getting ready to set mine at 65lbs.
Will JUL 15, 05:37 AM

quote
Originally posted by Bloozberry:
Will: Really? The pictures of the stainless fuel rails I've seen all seemed to have the FPR installed on them. Here's one for an Aurora on ebay that's supposedly new. Is that just the mounting boss on the rail and not the FPR itself?



Maybe it's different by application, but I ordered the part number for the correct connection locations (via Russ' thread on the matter) and the FPR pot was empty. Moving it over wasn't hard, but as I said there are small parts.
cptsnoopy JUL 15, 12:00 PM
When I got my stainless fuel rail from the local GM dealership it was without the FPR. The good news (for me anyways) is that the new FPR was inexpensive. I think it was around $20. I could have used an older one but I found some info around that suggests that these FPR's have a tendency to fail and let fuel into the vacuum line. I don't know what a new one will cost where you are so cost may be a factor.

Charlie
IMSA GT JUL 15, 07:07 PM
Time for the Construction Zone
Bloozberry JUL 16, 09:33 PM
Hey! A new home in the Construction Zone! I like the company in here!

Anyways, before giving the plenum a bath, I figured I’d get some of the messy work done and over with, so I decided to give this porcupine a shave & haircut. Here’s what I’m talking about:



Notice all the fuel rail mounting brackets molded into the sides of the plenum? Here’s what they look like close up. They’re no longer needed when the stainless rail gets installed.



At first it seemed like it would be an easy, quick and dirty task. I started out using a hand hacksaw to be able to control the cutting more easily, but found that the blade wandered a lot. The plenum runners weave in and out a bit too so you can't get a straight line of sight with the saw. I had to cut with the blade bent in a U shape which makes controlling it much more difficult.



Here’s the first “ear” lopped off. Notice how the plastic rail mount gets thicker towards the bottom of the runner as the angle between the runner and the mounting boss gets shallower. This is where the greatest work ended up taking place.



At first I thought I’d be able to use a grinding stone on my die grinder to make quick work out of smoothing off the left-over plastic, but from this photo you can see what happened within the first couple seconds of trying that idea. The stone just heated up the plastic and made it stick to the stone like Bubblicious on a summer sidewalk.



Next I tried a hand file but found that to be waaaaayyyy tooooo sloooow. And you can forget about sandpaper too… the PVC plastic just gums it up after a dozen or so passes. My breakthrough came when I tried a set of high speed multi-fluted dies. I tried one out on the spark plug wire clips molded into the top of the plenum and it worked like a charm. It chops instead of grinds so it doesn’t heat up the plastic and it was very easily controlled at high speed.



Here’s what the first boss looked like once it was lopped off and roughly smoothed. One of the things I found as I was shaping the lowest part of each fuel rail boss is that the mold line for the plenum must run under the bosses. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that the runner carries on in a nice smooth line under the first web (from top) that crosses the runner. But as it gets to the solid bottom part of the boss, the outside runner wall takes a bit of a step. GM obviously wasn’t expecting anyone to shave the bosses off so whether the mold halves lined up perfectly under them or not probably wasn’t a big concern. Oh well… nothing a little body filler can’t cure.



The other tough part was shaving one of the two vertical webs of each boss because it starts on the base of one runner, crosses over the valley between the adjacent runner and carries on part-way up that adjacent runner at a very shallow angle. If you look at the forth image in this post you’ll see what I mean. It’s the vertical web on the left side of the boss pictured that's a headache. Anyways, getting the tool to follow that eccentric path without slipping and nicking either runner is pretty difficult. More Bondo!

Here’s a couple shots of the intake plenum with all the unnecessary brackets shaved off, and with only two or three little nicks. Bring on the aftershave and the Kleenex bits! Next stop… the hot tub.
katatak JUL 17, 12:07 PM

quote
Originally posted by Bloozberry:

Katatak: "Whale oil beef hooked!" (say it with a Newfoundland accent... "Well I'll be f___"). All these years I've been painstakingly unclipping those rotten injectors with a screwdriver. Thanks for the tip!

Will: Really? The pictures of the stainless fuel rails I've seen all seemed to have the FPR installed on them. Here's one for an Aurora on ebay that's supposedly new. Is that just the mounting boss on the rail and not the FPR itself?

IXSLR8: I had read that the plenum's were to be replaced rather than cleaned in the service manual too. But I have a hard time believing anyone would do that. I haven't priced them out but I don't imagine they're cheap! Other than to make profit, for the life of me I can't understand GM philosophy (scratches head). If even the hot tank can't remove the carbon deposits, then I don't think we have to worry about them accidentally falling off into the engine, and I can't imagine there ever being enough deposits to choke off a runner. All I want to do is to get rid of the excess oil just pooled there in the bottom.



I feel your pain - took me 4 years to learn that - by mistake I might add.

Looking great Blooz - Welcome to the construction zone!

Pat

[This message has been edited by katatak (edited 07-17-2010).]

fieroguru JUL 17, 12:20 PM
Great job on decluttering the top side of the intake... it will look sharp and really set your swap apart.
bamman JUL 22, 12:38 AM
Thanks for all the up-dates. I can't see my self changing the 4.9, unless I win the lotto. But I think it is great that you are sharing for all those that will go the Northstar route.